2025 Catcher Preview
Rates & Barrels: A show about Baseball
The Athletic
4.7 • 873 Ratings
🗓️ 17 January 2025
⏱️ 87 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Eno and DVR continue their position preview series at catcher, where the league formats (one-catcher leagues v. two-catcher leagues) have a considerable impact on how to approach the group. Does William Contreras provide enough value over his position mates to justify at Top-30 overall ADP (in two-catcher leagues). Where is there value at the position, and which situations are better to avoid?
Rundown
5:38 ADP Tier 1 -- The William Contreras Tier
12:07 ADP Tier 2 -- Yainer Diaz, Adley Rutschman, Salvador Perez, Willson Contreras, Cal Raleigh & Will Smith
34:00 ADP Tier 3 -- Shea Langeliers, Logan O’Hoppe, J.T. Realmuto, Tyler Stephenson & Francisco Alvarez
43:28 ADP Tier 4 -- Gabriel Moreno, Austin Wells & Keibert Ruiz
52:19 ADP Tier 5 -- Sean Murphy, Iván Herrera, Connor Wong, Ryan Jeffers & Joey Bart
1:10:12 ADP Tier 6 -- Alejandro Kirk, Bo Naylor, Patrick Bailey & Jonah Heim
1:14:36 -- The Late, Late Catchers of Interest (Beyond Pick 300)
Follow Eno on Bluesky: @enosarris.bsky.social
Follow DVR on Bluesky: @dvr.bsky.social
e-mail: ratesandbarrels@gmail.com
Join our Discord: https://discord.gg/FyBa9f3wFe
Share your Positional Rankings in the HiveMind Ranks at Catcher https://forms.gle/GSDeDsWFneu1zzfp9
Subscribe to The Athletic: theathletic.com/ratesandbarrels
Hosts: Derek VanRiper & Eno Sarris
Producer: Brian Smith
Executive Producer: Derek VanRiper
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to Rates and Beryl's Friday, January 17th, Derek and Riper, Inoseris here with you the fifth installment of our position preview series. |
| 0:20.3 | Today, we go behind the plate and we break down catchers. here with you the fifth installment of our position preview series today. |
| 0:24.7 | We go behind the plate and we break down catchers. |
| 0:30.5 | And there's a lot to dissect here because a lot of leagues out there only require you to start one catcher. |
| 0:35.5 | But the leagues we talk about a lot on this show, the leagues we plan and FPC leagues, |
| 0:38.4 | they all require us to start two catchers. So the strategy differences between the two leagues. Yeah, you got that down. You got that down. I |
| 0:43.5 | thought your mic was broken at first. No, that's the proper effect. We could have a little |
| 0:48.8 | conversation about whether or not, you know, one catcher leagues make more sense and dig into that a little bit in |
| 0:54.9 | just a moment. Regardless of the number of catchers you have to start in your league, you can rank |
| 0:59.7 | them in our Discord. Go to the Hive Rankings channel. We'll have a post for catchers in there |
| 1:04.9 | link to a form where you can submit your own rankings, your agreements, your disagreements, your |
| 1:10.7 | sleepers, all of that, all in one place, getting lots of nice responses coming in for the first four positions so far. There's a pinned message at the top of the channel with all the links for all the positions so far. So if you missed one, you don't have to go scrolling back. Just go to the pin spot in the hive channel and you will find that. You can join our Discord using the link in the show |
| 1:27.9 | description. All right, you know, so you clearly don't like catchers. What's your beef with |
| 1:33.4 | catchers? I mean, it's the worst offensive position on the field and you have to have two of them. |
| 1:39.7 | We don't ask you to have two of anything else. I mean, you have five outfielders, yes, but, you know, there's three on the field. |
| 1:46.0 | So the argument I get from the generation of people who played fantasy baseball for us, |
| 1:53.9 | basically people that either invented the game or at least to help popularize it or make it |
| 1:58.7 | possible for us to have careers talking about it. |
| 2:01.7 | They say it makes the game too easy by not having a second catcher. |
| 2:05.1 | That's one of the core arguments. |
| 2:06.3 | And I just think to myself, is that the biggest challenge you're playing the game, |
| 2:11.1 | is finding a good second catcher? |
... |
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